Chasing Ghosts

It's been a tough bass season due to weekly pressure changes.  It feels like summer one day and   winter the next.  While I have been able to catch a few fine bass specimens in the past few weeks, the onslaught of abuse has caught up to me.  I set the 6wt down in exchange for short 3wt and chest pack.  It's time to return to the mountains.

Tucked away in a small tributary in my local mountain range lies a small gem.  This tributary used to hold brown trout that would rival many specimens caught in the lower Owens river.  It wasn't unusual to catch brown's pushing 14-16" on a dry fly.  Those days were years ago and drought with added fishing pressure hasn't help this fishery.  Most of the pools seemed vacant, while the smartest and largest trout were holding under boulders in shallow riffle water.

Presentation and stealth had to be on par.  I've never had to change my fly more than once, whereas today I must have changed it out on every other cast.  These fish were like chasing ghosts.  Shadows would move and undulate playing tricks on my mind.  I managed to get the river king to rise in a log jammed run.  It's head was large and body looked heavy, my guess is that it was in the 15" range.  I returned to it after a 30minute cool down and would rise only to reject me again.

Hours of crouch casting went by and only the dinks would fall for our efforts.  They were all small and beautiful, and hopefully more water will fill the creeks before summer arrives.  Even the deepest pools were shallow enough to see the bottom.  It's going to be a rough year.